1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a quality improvement system that uses failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) and, more specifically, to an easy-to-use quality improvement system that uses FMEA.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional quality improvement systems that use FMEA are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3693177 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-004219. Japanese Patent No. 3693177 discloses an improvement supporting system that can automatically identify a failure mode based on analysis data, defect occurrence history data, and link data which records a relationship between the analysis data and the defect occurrence history data, thereby evaluating the frequency of the failure mode.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-004219 discloses a facilities maintenance system that can automatically create a failure tree analysis (FTA) diagram based on real-time database information of a process monitoring system, derive root causes through day-to-day improvement efforts based on the FTA diagram to thereby create an FTA diagram database, automatically create an FMEA diagram based on the FTA diagram database, and devise a countermeasure plan through day-to-day improvement efforts based on the FMEA diagram to thereby create an FMEA database, thereby using that an FMEA countermeasure plan directly as an maintenance management index.